I’m a born and bred Southern California girl, who became an unexpected Manitoba girl when I went and fell in love with a Winnipegger. I invite you to join me on this journey of adjustment and adventure as I learn to adapt my passion for cooking, baking, gardening and interior design, to this very different culture and climate. Just click on the ‘follow’ button!

At Peace

I sit here by the window, gazing out upon this quiet, late-summer evening, watching the sun slowly end its daily journey across the sky. A memory reveals itself. A memory of a similar evening, many moons ago…

I lie on my tiny bed, against a soft pillow, in a room far away. In my arms, I cradle the bundle of belly that will soon become a newborn miracle, within a few weeks time. I remember acknowledging the beauty of the sunset, appreciating it. Yet, feeling a sadness so unexpected, so disappointing.

My life wasn’t a complete disaster. I had a decent roof over my head, I wasn’t homeless. I had adequate food to eat, to nourish my growing bundle and the means to pay for said bundle to enter the world. But, it wasn’t the fairy tale. The one that I had imagined at nine months pregnant. In this story, the monster was the dominant character. It was a desperate moment I harbored, as I watched the sun steadily slip away, begging it to take me with it to where ever it may be going.

But the sun doesn’t really go anywhere, does it? It stays in its eternal place in the sky while the earth turns. Passing the time, as we turn with it. Day after day. Year after year. Oh, how I struggled and scratched to survive each turn on its axis.

Here, now, I find myself gazing upon the same sun settling below a much different horizon, in a country quite foreign to the one I was in on that long ago evening. That bundle full of hope is now a beautifully grown, young adult. Strong, happy, successful, so proud of that kid. The prince that I knew would one day come, sleeps peacefully downstairs, unburdened by the cool evening air coming through the open window.

Sometimes, the fairy tale doesn’t come when you summon or expect it. It comes at a time when one is able to recognize, appreciate and embrace it.

I feel the air becoming cooler on my skin as the light disappears from the summer sky and I feel at peace. For the first time in my life, I am truly…..at peace.

We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves. – Dalai Lama